New report shows stark divide between the city and the region

Key
indicators show that it's mixed bag in terms of quality of life in the
nine-county region, according to a new report (included below) from ACT
Rochester. But, as usual, things look much worse when you zero in on the City
of Rochester.

ACT
Rochester compiles a yearly report card that measures what it says are key
indicators of the community's well-being. It also includes a statewide
comparison and says whether the trends are heading in a positive or negative
direction, of if they are unchanged.

The
indicators are arts, culture, and leisure; children and youth; community
engagement; economy; education; financial self-sufficiency; health; housing;
and public safety.

Some
highlights:

• State
funding for the arts has declined more than 50 percent regionally since 2001, following
a statewide pattern;

• The region's
child poverty rate, 19 percent, is below the state and national rates. But the child
poverty rate in the City of Rochester is an absurd 47 percent. The city numbers
are even higher for African American and Hispanic children;

• The
trade, transportation, and utilities sector, along with the health care sector,
provided the most jobs in the region between 2000 and 2012 -- 32 percent;

• Twenty-nine
percent of third graders in the region passed the state's new reading test,
below the state's 31 percent average. The passing rate in the City of Rochester
was an abysmal 6 percent. The numbers are similar for the state math test;

• The City
of Rochester had the lowest median income in the region, $30,708, with the
highest rate of poverty, 32 percent.

The public
safety section of the report is intriguing. It says that violent crime in the
City of Rochester increased 33 percent from 2000 to 2012. But year-end reports
from the Rochester Police Department show a general downward trend in violent
crime, at least from 2009 on.

The numbers
reinforce a December report put out by ACT Rochester and the Rochester
Area Community Foundation. Rochester's concentration of poverty is unique and
profound, the report says, and poses deep barriers to social and economic
progress.